external image clip_image001.gif

Challenge #1: Edit your wiki page!


1. Sign up for a free wikispaces wiki at: http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers
2. Choose a “space” name for your wiki that’s memorable, easy to type, and says a little bit to kids about what the wiki is about. When you are asked about the privacy settings, choose "protected".
3. Once you have joined, click out of the introduction and begin to “Edit this Page”
4. Write a paragraph that says a bit about how you might use your new wiki with your students
  • Set the title of your paragraph as “Heading 1” text
  • Use bold, italics, and colored text at various points in your paragraph
  • Save when you are finished
5. Below your paragraph, start a list of links to favorite internet resources. Add three links to external Web sites. Create a “Heading 1” title for this list.
6. Below your list of links, add links to your groupmates’ pages. Create a “Heading 2” title for this.
  • Hint: Look for the “Insert Hyperlinks” button
7. Find an image(s) on your computer. Add this image to your wiki page. Note: small images are much easier to work with.
  • Hint: Click on Insert File and upload and image
8. Create a new page and name it (“Unit 1,” “Dalai Lama” “History” “Biographies” etc,).
9. Find an image on the web and add this image to your new page.
  • Click on Insert File and go to the External Image Tab
  • Hint: You can get the URL for an image by right clicking the image and choosing “Copy Image Location.”)
10. Upload a PDF, Word, or Excel document to your wiki page.


Challenge #2: Manage your wiki

11. Invite your group members to join your wiki (Hint: Look in “Manage Wiki.”)
12. Set your Wikispace permissions to “protected.”
13. Set up notifications so you can monitor “all changes” to your wikispace, and receive email updates.
14. Change the Wikispace time zone to ‘EST.’
15. (optional) Apply a new ‘pre-made’ theme.

Help your groupmates. Make sure that everyone is up to speed


Challenge #3: Start and respond to a discussion

16. Click on the discussion tab on your wiki page and start a “thread” entitled: “Where to go from here?”
17. external image clip_image004.gifGo to one of your groupmate’s pages. Read their paragraph about what he/she is hoping to do with his/her wiki. Click on his/her discussion tab. Repond to the question “Where to go from here?” Provide some feedback on their wiki ideas or leave an idea you have about teaching with a wiki.


Challenge #4: Add multimedia and interactivity to your wiki

18. Create a new page and name it.
19. Embed a YouTube or TeacherTube video onto your new page. (Hint #1: Find source code for video at YouTube or TeacherTube. Hint #2: look for a helpful widget on wiki page)
20. Now, Embed a Table of Contents widget on your “home” page (Hint: Create three lines of ‘Heading1’ text on your page so you can see the table of contents)



Challenge #5: Edit your navigation bar

21. The navigation bar is a special wiki page which is very narrow and appears on the left side of every other wiki page. By default, the navigation bar has one widget on it “Include Page List” which automatically generates an alphabatized list of page links. If what you want is an automated list of page links, this is perfect. But you can edit the navigation bar to your own specifications as well.
  • Try creating your own list of links below the “Include Page List” widget and see which you like better.
  • If you delete the “Include Page List” widget, you can always add it again from the widget menu.



Advanced Challenges

  • revert one of your pages back to an earlier edit. (hint: Look for “history” tab.)
  • embed a poll or spreadsheet on your wikipage. (hint: you can make a poll at polldaddy.com, or surveygizmo.com)
  • embed a googledocs calendar or spreadhsheet (and send a google invite to whomever and edit it simultaneouly!)

Help your groupmates. Make sure that everyone is up to speed